Calamity Physics
a sermon given by the Rev. Roger Paine
on Easter Sunday, March 23, 2008
at The First Parish in Lincoln
To listen to the Easter music first click here.
“Calamity Physics: The explosion of energy, light, heartbreak, and wonder.”
– Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl
READING:
The reading this morning is from the 24th chapter of the Gospel According to Luke. It’s the third day after Jesus’ death on the cross, and two of his followers who were in Jerusalem for Passover are now on the road, walking home. And as they walk, a stranger joins them. Here is Luke 24:13-31:
Now that day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; but they couldn’t recognize him.
He asked them, “What were you discussing as you walked along?” They stood still, their faces downcast. One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who doesn’t know what’s happened there these last few days?”
“What are you talking about?” he asked.
“About Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied. “He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed and in the eyes of God and all the people. The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and crucified him; but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what’s more, it’s been three days now since all this happened.
“Meanwhile, some women from our group amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning but didn't find his body. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive. Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it exactly as the women had said, but nobody saw him.”
He said to them, “You people are so slow of heart, so reluctant to trust what the prophets have said! Wasn’t the Messiah destined to suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them every passage of scripture that referred to himself.
As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus acted as if he were going farther. But they entreated him, saying, “Stay with us; it’s almost evening; the day is nearly over.” So he went in to stay with them. When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he vanished from their sight.
Mainstream ministers like me over-think our Easter sermons.
Evangelical ministers under-think theirs.
Either way, it’s easy to do.
The Easter story is about a man who died on a cross in full view of a large crowd.
His body was wrapped in linen and laid to rest in a garden tomb that belonged to an influential friend.
But on the morning of the first Easter, the tomb was empty,
and later that day his closest followers, who had been overwhelmed by grief,
were saying that he had appeared to them, spoken with them, eaten bread and fish with them.
They were saying that he was alive.
So the story we tell today is a story that does not square with any laws we know about.
It breaks all the rules.
If we try to make it sound reasonable, we over-think it.
We rob it of its essence by taking away its mystery.
A mystical experience is not reasonable.
But it is always vivid – and it is very real.
We under-think the Easter story if we believe CNN could have caught the whole thing on videotape.
It’s not that kind of story.
It does not ask us to make a choice between biology and belief.
What it does is invite us to open our eyes, as the two travelers on the road to Emmaus finally did,
and see that something extraordinary was happening then – and still is today –
something real and true.
The Easter story also requires straight talk from us preachers.
My preaching professor in divinity school was adamant about this:
don’t tap dance around the resurrection, he would say, don’t hide out behind pretty metaphors;
you have to tell people what you think really happened.
I think what really happened can be summed up in the words “calamity physics.”
Calamity physics is an idea coined by a young writer named Marisha Pessl.
She defines it as “the explosion of energy, light, heartbreak, and wonder – and what follows from it.”
The Easter story begins with calamity and heartbreak and it ends with physics –
with an explosion of energy, light, and wonder –
and the accounts we have in the bible are all an attempt to describe what that was like.
The account in Luke about two of Jesus’ followers walking home to Emmaus is very matter-of-fact.
They are heartbroken over what has happened in Jerusalem.
A stranger falls in with them as they walk and asks what they’re talking about.
The narrator tells us that the stranger is Jesus, but the two men “couldn’t recognize him.”
They can’t believe he hasn’t heard the news; one of them asks,
“Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who doesn’t know what’s happened there?”
He shakes his head and they bring him up to date:
“A prophet, powerful in word and deed,” was put to death three days ago by the chief priests and rulers,
but this morning, “some of the women in our group amazed us” –
they went to visit his tomb and found it empty.
Two angels told them that he is alive.
Some of the men went to the tomb and found it exactly as the women had said.
But no one has seen Jesus himself.
The stranger tells them they are too “slow of heart” and he gives them a walking bible study class,
covering everything that was forecast about the Messiah, from Moses on to all the prophets,
and as evening comes, they arrive in Emmaus.
The men invite the stranger to stay with them – “the day is nearly over” –
and when they sit down to eat, he takes the bread, gives thanks, breaks it –
and in that moment, “their eyes were opened,” they recognize him, and he’s gone.
So what are we to make of this story?
Well, at least one thing it’s saying is that often something very simple
– like breaking bread and giving thanks around our own table –
can help us see a truth that we’ve been missing, even though it’s right in front of us.
Then, as now, the risen Jesus becomes known in the sharing of bread.
And then, as now, he is with us on our journeys, whether we know it or not.
But then, people don’t just vanish into thin air.
So what do I think really happened?
For this, I am deeply in debt to the Catholic New Testament scholar, John Dominic Crossan,
who’s written several thoughtful books about the life of Jesus;
his chapter on the resurrection is titled, “How Many Years Was Easter Sunday?”
He’s asking: what if that first Easter happened on a larger canvas?
What if it took weeks, months – even a year or two?
The gospels tell us that Jesus’ disciples went home, mended their nets,
and resumed their old lives – but in the weeks and months that followed,
they couldn’t forget the amazing person whose ministry they had been part of.
As they went about their business,
there were moments when they felt as if he was still right with them,
helping make breakfast, coaxing and cajoling,
encouraging them not to give up hope.
For them, there was no other way to describe these experiences except to say: we’ve seen him.
A mystical experience is not reasonable.
But it is always vivid – and it is real.
Some of us, maybe even most of us, after losing a loved one, have had a similar experience.
Not a vision, but a strong, felt sense of presence that is palpable and real.
I believe that’s what happened to the travelers at home in Emmaus.
For them, it happened that very day, but for most of Jesus other followers,
their sense of his presence happened over weeks, months, even a year or two.
It was an explosion of energy, light, heartbreak, and wonder, and what followed from it was this:
a group of ordinary men and women went into the public square
at the risk of their own lives and started telling people about this amazing man,
what he said, what he did, the example he set.
Yes, he died on the cross – but he was still alive in a new way.
I hope those of you who were here ten years ago will forgive me for re-telling another true story –
a story that was used as the inspiration for an episode
in a television series about a hospital in Boston named St. Elsewhere.
The wife of a young doctor named Morrison is mortally injured in an accident;
Dr. Morrison is not on duty when the ambulance arrives with his wife’s broken body,
and a team of his colleagues tries in vain to bring her back, but they can’t save her.
They know from her ID that she’s an organ donor,
and there is another young woman in the same hospital
who is next on the waiting list for a new heart.
So with no time to waste, the team does the transplant operation.
When Dr. Morrison, arrives for his shift, he knows nothing of any of this,
but with one look into the eyes of the other doctors, he knows that they have terrible news.
They tell him about his wife – how sorry they are, how they did everything they could to save her.
They tell him about the transplant – that it was successful.
And they tell him not to worry about his shift – another doctor is already covering it.
He asks them for some time alone.
And after a while he goes up to the Intensive Care Unit,
where the woman who was given his wife’s heart is still in recovery, sleeping peacefully.
He sits quietly next to her bed, looking at her face.
And then slowly, he puts on his stethoscope,
and very gently rests the silver bell on her chest,
and for the next minute, he listens to the sound of his wife’s heart.
And so one person’s death gives another person new life.
And in so doing, there was calamity and heartbreak, energy, light, and wonder.
On the first Easter Sunday, however long it took, Jesus’ disciples did not literally get a heart transplant.
But they did get a new heart.
The expensive message of Easter is that then and now,
we live in a world that sometimes feels as if it has lost its bearings,
but if you never give up on what you believe is true and beautiful and good,
mighty forces will come to your aid.
God is traveling with us on our journey, even when we don’t realize it.
Amen.
Easter Music
Introit - Lift Up Your Heads from the Messiah
Anthem - I Know My Redeemer Liveth and Since By Man from the Messiah
Anthem - He Trusted In God from the Messiah
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